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About Us

Intro

Motivating Action through Community Health Outreach (MAChO) is a student-run volunteer program based in the Community Service Office of Weill Cornell Medical College. We are a diverse group of volunteers with a variety of personal and professional backgrounds who share a central vision of empowering our youth through the promotion of healthy living.

About Us

MAChO is a student-run volunteer program based in the Community Service Office of Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC). Established in 2009, the program was initially designed to tackle the United States? childhood obesity epidemic but has grown to encompass a broader mission of promoting healthy living in underserved communities. What started as a WCMC student initiative has grown into a diverse group volunteers who come from all walks of life and are committed to the promotion of healthy living among youth. Although our immediate focus is to empower our participants with practical tools to make healthier choices, we strive to instill values through personal development that can be applied to other endeavors in life. Our partnerships with several mission-aligned and community-based organizations have allowed us to implement an innovative and holistic program that empowers youth to adopt healthy habits early in their lives. We strive to promote healthy living through two initiatives: a Youth Wellness Program (YWP) and a Youth Leadership Program (YLP). YWP is a program for children ages 8-13 and has a focus on nutrition, physiology, fitness and personal development. YLP engages high school juniors and seniors and has a focus on wellness and social justice. The aim of YLP is to incorporate high school students from the community into YWP as mentors to their younger co-participants while developing their leadership skills.

Mission

MAChO believes in empowering youth with practical tools to take control of their health and their lives through proper nutrition, fitness, and personal development. We strongly believe that motivating youth to adopt healthy living at an early age is a key component in empowering them to realize their limitless potential. Additionally, we seek to build a sustainable program with strong roots in the community through engaging local high school students in topics of wellness and health justice.

Vision

MAChO aims to curb the incidence of preventable chronic diseases in our most affected communities by educating, motivating, and inspiring our youth to become change agents so that together we can build social and human capital. At the core of the program is the concept of teamwork, which is integral to everything we do. Our teams work together to promote the message of healthy living through after-school programming for elementary and middle school kids, a program for high school students to express their thoughts on wellness topics in their communities, family engagement and community based events.